A cat's paw, or cat's claw, is a metal hand tool used to extract nails, typically from wood, by leverage. A standard part of a carpenter's kit, it has a sharp, V-shaped tip on one or both ends that is driven under a nailhead with a hammer blow so the nail can then be pried free, making it essentially a smaller, purpose-built, more ergonomic version of a crowbar. Older cat's paws had a single, rounder, cup-shaped extracting head, which is where the tool's name comes from, while the modern standard has two narrower, more pointed heads set roughly ninety degrees apart.
Facts
Introduced When (Circa)Appeared once machine-made nails with distinct heads became common, superseding the individually hand-forged nails of the pre-Industrial Revolution era that this tool's slide-hammer-style predecessor was built to salvage intact; a narrower, more pointed Japanese-style head has since been adopted to reduce the damage the original rounded head did to surrounding wood. 1 OriginHistorically the cat's paw had a single, significantly rounder, cup-shaped extracting head, which is the source of its name; the modern norm instead uses two narrower, more pointed heads offset ninety degrees from one another. 1 Sources
1. Cat's Paw (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationArticle body, opening paragraph, historical head-shape sentence
Historically, the cat's paw had a single significantly rounder, more cup-shaped extracting head, giving it its name. Today, the norm is to have the two much narrower and more pointed heads offset 90-degrees (in plane) from one-another (allowing the bar to be pressed fully down when using the tip on the long end without damaging the surface the free end contacts).
History section
With machine made nails capped with distinct heads a cat's paw shaped puller appeared
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.